The family of a seven-year-old girl who died after a lifelong battle with illness have paid tribute to ‘a bundle of love’.

Severely disabled Crystal Marie Perkins, of Snape Street, Darwen, died on Saturday but defied doctors’ expectations even to survive birth.

Her grandmother and legal guardian, Pauline Perkins, said Crystal ‘would be missed by many people’.

Crystal, who attended the specialist Newfield School in Shadsworth, Blackburn, was born with spina bifida, hydrocephalus (water on the brain), and severe kidney and lung problems. Crystal – who left hospital for the first time at the age of four – also had a cleft palate, a displaced hip, epilepsy, deformed feet, and struggled to swallow.